Tag: Jim

On Tuesday afternoon, Hillary Clinton was a guest of the Women for Women International Luncheon in New York City. During the event, Clinton had a conversation with Christiane Amanpour. The two discussed a number of issues including the Donald Trump administration, a potential conflict with North Korea, and the 2016 presidential election. While Clinton accepted the blame for her loss, she said that there were a number of other factors including the letter from FBI Director James Comey and Russian hacking of the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary for America Campaign Director John Podesta.

Clinton said she would have won the election if it had not been for the Comey letter and Wikileaks in late October adding, “If the election had been held on October 27, I’d be your president, and it wasn’t. It was on October 28.” Clinton did not deflect all of the blame saying that her campaign made mistakes. “I was the candidate, I was the person who was on the ballot and I am very aware of the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had,” she admitted. Clinton vowed to remain active in politics as a citizen and urged everyone to do the same. Watch a video from the event below.

On Friday, FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to a Congressional Judiciary Committee explaining that the FBI had decided to reopen the case investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State. The three page letter did not go into much detail which lead the Clinton campaign to respond. Campaign Chair John Podesta released a statement calling on Comey and the FBI to release more information surrounding their reasoning considering the election is less than two weeks away. The statement from Podesta is below.

“Upon completing this investigation more than three months ago, FBI Director Comey declared no reasonable prosecutor would move forward with a case like this and added that it was not even a close call. In the months since, Donald Trump and his Republican allies have been baselessly second-guessing the FBI and, in both public and private, browbeating the career officials there to revisit their conclusion in a desperate attempt to harm Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

FBI Director Comey should immediately provide the American public more information than is contained in the letter he sent to eight Republican committee chairmen. Already, we have seen characterizations that the FBI is ‘reopening’ an investigation but Comey’s words do not match that characterization. Director Comey’s letter refers to emails that have come to light in an unrelated case, but we have no idea what those emails are and the Director himself notes they may not even be significant.

It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election.

The Director owes it to the American people to immediately provide the full details of what he is now examining. We are confident this will not produce any conclusions different from the one the FBI reached in July.”

The FBI did elaborate later in the day saying that additional evidence related to the Clinton investigation was discovered on a laptop seized during the investigation of Rep. Anthony Weiner. FBI officials said that the bureau will investigate the newly discovered emails on the laptop and that it is possible that the emails could be duplicates of ones previously turned over by the Clinton camp. State Department officials said they have not been made aware of the FBI’s new evidence. More details are likely to be released in the coming weeks, but the news of a reopened investigation could affect Clinton at the polls.

Read the letter from Comey to Congress below (download the letter HERE).

UPDATE (10/28): Following an event in Des Moines, Iowa, Hillary Clinton spoke at a press event and addressed the issues of the FBI reopening its investigation. Clinton said that the FBI needs to release additional details regarding its investigation with the election being less than two weeks away. “Voting is underway, so the American people deserve to get the full and complete facts immediately,” she said. She said that she was confident that nothing new would be found and that she did not know what new evidence the FBI might be referring to adding, “Right now, your guess is as good as mine, and I don’t think that’s good enough.” A video of Clinton’s statement is below.

UPDATE (10/29):The Washington Post obtained a copy of an internal memo sent by FBI director James Comey to FBI employees. In the letter, he briefly explains his reasoning for taking the early details of an investigation to Congress. Read the letter below:

To all:

This morning I sent a letter to Congress in connection with the Secretary Clinton email investigation. Yesterday, the investigative team briefed me on their recommendation with respect to seeking access to emails that have recently been found in an unrelated case. Because those emails appear to be pertinent to our investigation, I agreed that we should take appropriate steps to obtain and review them.

Of course, we don’t ordinarily tell Congress about ongoing investigations, but here I feel an obligation to do so given that I testified repeatedly in recent months that our investigation was completed. I also think it would be misleading to the American people were we not to supplement the record. At the same time, however, given that we don’t know the significance of this newly discovered collection of emails, I don’t want to create a misleading impression. In trying to strike that balance, in a brief letter and in the middle of an election season, there is significant risk of being misunderstood, but I wanted you to hear directly from me about it.

Jim Comey

UPDATE (10/29): Hillary for America responded to the news with several press releases and a post on Medium from campaign chair John Podesta.

UPDATE (10/30): The FBI announced that it obtained a warrant to search the emails found on a laptop belonging to former Congressman Anthony Weiner. While it is unclear how many emails on the laptop, if any, are relevant to the Hillary Clinton email investigation, an official revealed that there are over 650,000 emails on the computer. It is likely that the majority belong to the former Congressman, but his wife, Clinton aide Huma Abedin, also used the laptop. FBI officials also revealed today that several lower level investigators knew the emails existed weeks ago, but only recently brought them to the attend of Director James Comey. It is also unclear why a warrant was received after Comey briefed Congress of the investigation on Friday.

Hillary for America campaign chair John Podesta and campaign manager Robby Mook have been on the defensive since the revelations were announced. The campaign released a video about the facts of the case and calling for more details to be released considering the timing. The video released by The Briefing is below.

UPDATE (10/31): Former Attorney General Eric Holder wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post in which he called FBI director James Comey “a good man,” but said that he made a mistake by telling Congress about evidence that may have nothing to do with the Hillary Clinton email case. In the editorial, Holder says, “The department has a practice of not commenting on ongoing investigations. Indeed, except in exceptional circumstances, the department will not even acknowledge the existence of an investigation. The department also has a policy of not taking unnecessary action close in time to Election Day that might influence an election’s outcome. These rules have been followed during Republican and Democratic administrations. They aren’t designed to help any particular individual or to serve any political interest. Instead, they are intended to ensure that every investigation proceeds fairly and judiciously; to maintain the public trust in the department’s ability to do its job free of political influence; and to prevent investigations from unfairly or unintentionally casting public suspicion on public officials who have done nothing wrong.” Read the full editorial HERE.

The editorial board of The New York Times asked readers to select from a list of questions the one that they would most like both presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, to answer. The three questions that received the most votes were about climate change, income inequality, and gun violence. Read Clinton’s answers below, or click HERE to read both candidates’ answers.

1. It is widely accepted scientific fact that climate change is real and potentially catastrophic. What specific action will you take in the next four years?

Hillary Clinton: Climate change is real, and we have a moral obligation to leave our children and grandchildren a better planet. I believe we can fight climate change and create millions of good-paying jobs at the same time.

Some nation is going to be the clean energy superpower of the 21st century. It’s either going to be Germany, China or us, and I want to make sure that it’s us. And we can do it in a way that means no one gets left out or left behind.

I’ve laid out specific plans to modernize our electric grid with enough renewable energy to power every home in America within a decade, including 500 million solar panels by the end of my first term. I want to launch a Clean Energy Challenge to partner with cities, states, and rural communities that are ready to lead on clean energy, clean transportation, and energy efficiency, and help them go further.

We’ll invest in resilient infrastructure that will protect communities like those in North Carolina, Iowa, and Louisiana that have seen terrible floods just this year. We know that low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately affected by pollution and by extreme weather, and climate change is only going to make that worse. So I will make environmental and climate justice a priority, including eliminating lead as a major public health threat within five years.

We’re already less dependent on foreign oil than we have been in decades, but we can go further, reduce oil consumption by a third, and do more to power America with home-grown wind, solar, and advanced biofuels.

And I have a real plan to invest in creating jobs and building stronger economies in coal country. America’s coal communities have kept our lights on and our factories running for generations, and I won’t let them be left in the dark.

Finally, I believe the United States needs to continue to lead the global effort to combat climate change. I will fulfill the pledge President Obama made in the Paris Climate Agreement and seek to go further by cutting emissions up to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. We need to implement the breakthrough we achieved just last week in the Montreal Protocol to phase down super-polluting HFCs and avoid as much as half a degree of warming.

Not only does America need to lead, we need to do more to work with our neighbors. We trade more energy with Canada and Mexico than with the rest of the world combined. That’s why I want to negotiate a North American Climate Compact to cut emissions and accelerate the clean energy transition across the continent.

I won’t let the climate deniers stand in the way of progress, or let us give in to the climate defeatists who say this challenge is too big to solve. We can and will take on climate change, build a clean energy economy, and leave our kids and grandkids a safe and healthy world—because there is no Planet B.

2. What would you do to reduce the extreme income inequality in this country?

Hillary Clinton: Too many hardworking Americans have the deck stacked against them. No one who works hard should have to raise their kids in poverty, or worry they won’t be able to retire with dignity.

But the majority of the income growth since the Great Recession has gone to people at the top. Working people haven’t gotten a raise in 15 years. Right now, the top one-tenth of one percent of Americans own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent combined. We haven’t seen this level of wealth inequality since right before the Great Depression.

We need an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top. For starters, I’ll raise the federal minimum wage and guarantee equal pay for women. And we’ll promote profit-sharing—the workers who help make their companies profitable should be able to share in that success the way executives do.

We need to create more good jobs that pay enough to raise a family. So we’ll make the biggest investment in good jobs since World War II—jobs in infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, and clean energy. We need to make sure that jobs in home health care, child care, and other fields provide good pay and good benefits, and make it easier for workers to organize and bargain collectively in all industries. We need to do more to support small businesses that create so many new jobs. And we need to make it easier for people to be good employees and good parents by guaranteeing 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for every worker.

We also need to go after intergenerational poverty. Every child in America should be able to live up to his or her God-given potential, no matter who your parents are or what ZIP code you grew up in. That’s why I’m going to make pre-school universal for every four-year-old in America.

It’s also why we’re going to embrace approaches like South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn’s 10-20-30 plan, where 10 percent of federal investments are made in communities where 20 percent of the people have been living in poverty for the last 30 years. Let’s address the systemic problems that have kept too many in poverty for far too long.

Lastly, we need more fairness in our tax system. By closing the loopholes and requiring those at the top to pay their fair share in taxes, we can help cover the cost of vital investments that will create jobs and opportunity for middle-class families and help lift millions out of poverty. Around two-thirds of the burden of my tax plan falls on the highest earning 0.1 percent of taxpayers.

Here’s what we won’t do. We won’t raise taxes on people making less than $250,000. And we won’t spend trillions of dollars giving huge new tax breaks to the wealthy and big corporations. They’ve seen the gains in recent years—they should pay their fair share to make the investments that will grow the economy for everyone.

3. What would your administration do to reduce gun violence and mass shootings?

Hillary Clinton: We lose an average of 90 Americans every day because of guns. Since I launched my campaign for the presidency in April of 2015, that means more than 50,000 people have been killed by gun violence in America.

I’ve met some of their families, and countless others whose lives have been forever changed by gun violence. I’ve traveled the country with mothers like Lucy McBath, whose 17-year-old son Jordan was shot and killed for playing music. I’ve been inspired by advocates like Erica Smegielski, whose mother Dawn died trying to protect her students at Sandy Hook School. And I’ve prayed with residents in cities like Charleston, one of the many communities across our country that have been devastated by this epidemic.

For decades, people have said this issue was too hard to solve and the politics too hot to touch. But as I’ve listened to the stories in every corner of our country, one question has stayed at the front of my mind: How can we just stand by and do nothing?

That simple answer is: We can’t.

So here’s what I think we need to do. First, we need to expand background checks to include more gun sales, like those at gun shows and over the Internet. There’s no reason a domestic abuser should be able to go online and buy a gun with no questions asked. And we need to close other loopholes, like the so-called “Charleston Loophole” that allows dangerous people to buy guns without a background check if that check isn’t completed within three days.

Second, we need to hold the gun industry accountable, and end laws that shield them from liability when they break the law. We saw that just this month, when one of those laws was used to block the families of the Sandy Hook shooting from having their day in court.

Finally, we need to keep military-style weapons off our streets. They are a danger to law enforcement and to our communities.

By taking these common sense steps, we can keep our children safe and respect the Second Amendment. The vast majority of Americans support measures like these. So our challenge isn’t finding common ground. It’s getting politicians to listen to their constituents rather than the gun lobby.

For that to happen we need to say, loudly and clearly, that gun violence is an issue that matters. And we need to vote accordingly.

One year ago today, the Supreme Court ruled that it is illegal for states to block LGBT citizens from getting married. The decision came out of two cases (United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges), and the rulings proved to be a historic moment in the United States. Hillary Clinton released a statement praising the progress that has been made, and she vowed to continue to fight for equal rights for LGBT Americans under federal law. A copy of Clinton’s statement is below:

“One year ago today, we celebrated a watershed moment for equality in America. Thanks to the bravery of LGBT Americans like Jim Obergefell and Edie Windsor, and the determination and tireless organizing of the LGBT community and their allies, marriage equality became the law of the land in all 50 states.

Over the last year, more barriers to equality have fallen – including, finally, the last state law banning same-sex couples from adopting. Just this month, President Obama designated Stonewall as the first national monument commemorating LGBT history in America.

We’ve also seen how much work is still unfinished. The attack in Orlando broke our hearts, and reminded us that LGBT people – particularly people of color – are still targets for harassment and violence. Discriminatory laws in states like North Carolina highlight the need for full federal equality under the law for LGBT Americans. And Donald Trump’s pledge to consider appointing Supreme Court justices who would overturn marriage equality underscores the fact that so much of the progress we’ve made is at stake in November.

But even when the road ahead seems daunting, never forget: on this day in history, love triumphed in the highest court in the land. Today, our march toward a more perfect union continues—toward equality, dignity, and justice for all.”